GENAVIEVE GILBERT
Medium: Painting , Visual Arts
Contact Information
8647530161
https://www.genavievegilbert.comhttps://www.instagram.com/genavieve_gilbert/https://www.facebook.com/genavievegilbert.artI developed a love for creative process in High School and studied art and history at the Ringling School of Art and Design as well as Palm Beach Atlantic University, graduating in 2005. My daily studio practice developed in 2016 after struggling with anxiety as a young mother. It was a deeply personal time and space where my spiritual journey and creative process merged. To my surprise, I quickly started selling work. At the time I was mostly painting celestial night-scenes in oil, as that subject matter was deeply intertwined with my personal relationship to God.
Shortly after this period while living in Austin, TX, I began live painting in the midst of corporate gatherings. My process shifted from the personal alone time I spent in my studio to the communal experience with God in a church setting. I began working more with acrylics in this period and on a larger scale. Again, my emphasis was still in creating various series of works focused on spiritual themes observed in nature and the human experience.
Since moving to Greenville in Oct 2021 I have returned to my solitary studio practice where it all began for me. The last few series I have released have been mixed media abstract florals. For me, there is something intrinsically linked between the flower and the human heart. As I create these floral shapes, even in abstract form, I am exploring and dissecting the essence of what it means to be fully alive by embracing our mortality. What does it mean to embrace ones vulnerability, innate beauty, incomparable nature, and fragility? Like a flower, our existence in this life carries profound beauty that impacts those around us, and yet simultaneously, we are in a process that leads to the inevitable demise that awaits us all. What we believe about that end will inevitably determine how we currently choose to bloom. It is my own deep personal wrestle with these realities that end up on the canvas.
Whether through my paintings, classes, or books, my hope is that in choosing to share my own authentic journey as a human being questioning, seeking, and peering into the mystery of life, that others will be encouraged in their own journeys. My prayer is that the Goodness that created us, and that awaits us, can be felt and experienced through my work in some small way.